Nurturing Emotional Intelligence & Thought Leadership

You may not be judged by how clever you are or your financial prowess. How can tapping into emotional intelligence define you as a better leader? What can be done to allow the thought leader to surface?

What's the positive difference this thing called 'leadership' actually makes? Another way of thinking about it is to ask what we wouldn't have if we didn't have leadership. Typically, a handful of key words or terms emerge from small group discussions: direction, support, motivation, morale, development.

There is the constant quest to define the qualities that make a great leader. This quest will go on until the end of time, as it should. It will be a constantly changing proposition because as a consequence of our rapidly changing environment leaders need to constantly evolve, shift, adapt and ensure they are relevant.

While the topic of what constitutes good and effective leadership continues to be debated, what cannot be ignored is the potential role neuroscience has to offer in enhancing leadership development based on the physiology of the brain. Neuroleadership is the term coined by Dr. David Rock in 2006 relating specifically to using different aspects of neuroscience to explore how to boost performance in four key areas: problem solving and decision making, emotional self-regulation, working well with others and facilitating change.

Leaders like to be seen as the 'experts' - the ones who have all the answers. This makes them feel important and they believe it gives them more credibility. However, the truth is that being a beginner is a much more effective strategy.

A vital part of effective workplace interaction is partaking in, rather than avoiding, difficult or awkward conversations. These conversations could include performance management discussions, team conflict issues, asking for a pay rise or bringing up concerns you may have about a colleague's wellbeing.

Leaders have long been promoted to senior positions due to their intelligence and skills, which are easily quantifiable traits. Now the trend is moving towards recognising other capabilities as highly regarded - if not essential - to hiring, or promoting, a great leader for an organisation.

Work hard enough at building your base of thought leadership and you (along with what you have to say) become ideally positioned to become entrenched as the number-one, go-to organisation for your product or service. By being passionate about what you know and sharing it with others, thought leadership transcends selling and is something unique and greatly sought after by customers of all kinds.

One of the most important factors in leadership success is self-confidence. You can practice it, acquire it, keep it, and eliminate its enemy - insecurity. Learn 7 strategies to unshakeable leadership self-confidence.

"Caring" is an essential leadership characteristic, but can sound "soft". Do we risk encouraging a soft workforce if we emphasise "caring" in leadership? Not at all. Caring has as much of a hard edge to it, as it does a soft edge. There are at least five "care factors" to consider in effective leadership.

Unfortunately, judgement - rather than understanding - seems to come all too naturally and all too quickly for so many of us. Conflict starts when understanding stops. That being the case, how can you become a more understanding leader?

You can only learn, in the sense of discovering something you didn't know before, from making mistakes, identifying what went wrong, then correcting and trying again. But in most organisations, making any mistake is risky, and doing it openly is often punishable.

As a leader in the 21st century, it is necessary to really think about what leadership means - and more specifically, Thought Leadership. The world has changed fundamentally in the last 10 years and dramatically in the last 6 months. A subtle shift in power and information accessibility has flipped the models for leadership in the organisational and entrepreneurial arenas.

Trust sits at the base of any relationship - whether it's an organisation, buyer and seller or client and supplier - the strength, sustainability and productive capacity of the relationship will be determined largely by the trust that exists and is experienced.

One of the main points of emotional intelligence as set out by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence is self management. He describes ‘self regulation' as the first of six components of self management.